


A Waltz In Darkness

by library_of_crazy221b



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 08:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/library_of_crazy221b/pseuds/library_of_crazy221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Its the year 2032, and former agent Claudia Donovan has been Caretaker of the Warehouse for thirteen years, making her already insane life even more insane. On top of everything, Steve has been missing for four long years, Claudia refuses to believe he is dead, and their daughter is caught somewhere in the middle. Meanwhile there’s a hacker out to take down Pete’s company, an accordion in Minnesota, and a tree that meets its untimely end. How could it have come to this?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> ***A collaboration fiction I wrote with memorysdaughter of Fanfiction.net. Kudos to her for the idea, and the creation of the original characters. This story is also published on Fanfiction under the same title. Enjoy!

In his opinion, hotels were pleasant.  For someone on the move, they made for a comfortable place to stop for a night, as sleeping in cars gave one a wretched stitch in the neck, and with thousands of customers coming through what amounted to a blank canvas of a building each night, he could wipe himself out of existence in a matter of minutes.  
  
Simple, comfortable, and forgettable.  
  
Leaning against the headboard of the bed, he chewed the end of a pen thoughtfully, his laptop resting conveniently in his lap.  He didn’t use the pen; it was merely a mechanism of thought.  Replacing it back on the desk, his fingers flew across the keyboard as he continued his research.  
  
“Come on,” he muttered to himself. “You’re a top secret government warehouse, how hard can it be to break in?”  
  
Typing furiously, he watched the screen intently, eyes scanning for any hint at what he was looking for.  His thought process was interrupted by a knock at the door.  
  
“Yeah?” he called without looking up.  
  
“Mr. Crane,” the voice replied.   
  
“Come in,” he said, beckoning at the door with his hand, unconsciously forgetting that the gesture could not be seen.  
  
There was a click, and the door swung open revealing a tall, burly young man in a black suit and tie.  The man known as Crane looked up from his computer and smiled.  
  
“Aiden!” he said. “You have anything for me?”  
  
“I do, sir.”  
  
“Good.  What is it?”  
  
Aiden stepped forward, handing him a folder.  Crane plucked it from the youth’s grasp, opened it, and began to browse through the information contained within.  
  
“It’s a list of every person who has ever worked for him,”Aiden said as his boss studied the file.  
  
“Ah, yes, the good folks of Lattimer’s League.”  
  
“Legion, sir.”  
  
Crane frowned as he flipped through the folder of some two hundred names, some of which were familiar to him. If he didn’t have so much to do himself, he would have made a night of it. Closing the folder, he set it on the desk and sipped at the mug of tea resting there.  
  
“Where did you get this information?” he asked.  
  
“An unsuspecting agent at the Legion,” Aiden replied stiffly. “He was... shall we say... persuaded to offer me the information.”  
  
Crane shook his head.   _Legion._  The man certainly did not deny himself the simple pleasures of life, or the easy thrill of childish theatrics.  
  
“And will he be persuaded to give information of your encounter to anyone else?” he asked calmly.  
  
There was a slight pause as the youth shifted uncomfortably.  
  
“It’s possible, sir,” he said at last.  
  
Crane sighed, burying his face in his palms. “I hate to dump something new on you, but he has to go – as soon as possible. Make sure you aren’t seen, and make sure nobody finds him. Here.”  
  
As he spoke, Crane tossed Philo of Byzantium’s gimbal at his burly employee, who caught it easily.  
  
“Make sure to cover your tracks, Aiden, or I’m afraid I’ll have to kill you,” he said with a grin.  
  
The smile faltered on the younger man’s gruff, unshaven face, but he nodded stoically as he exited the room of his employer, leaving the older man in peace once again.  
  
Shaking his head, Crane once again returned to his business, enjoying the peace for several minutes as he continued his search. After what felt like ages, he suddenly found something encouraging.  
  
“A back door to a back door,” he murmured. “Talk about your overkill.  What would Freud say?”  
  
He carefully worked his way through the encryptions, focused on taking every possible precaution to avoid detection.  He had not gotten far when the screen twitched.  
  
He froze, his confidence shaken, hardly daring to breathe. Then, with a dazzling display of color, his screen erupted with light.  An elaborate display of fiery orange and red filled the screen as the information on the page disappeared, leaving the screen completely covered in pixelated flames.  
.  
“NO!” he snarled.  He typed furiously in a desperate attempt to save his hard drive, and it was only from months of practice and experience that he could prevent a full drive break-down.  
  
He was surprised as words in fancy script appeared on his now dark screen, and he couldn’t help but smile.  Finally allowing himself to exhale, he reminded himself that no harm had been done, except to slow his mission ever so slightly.  He would learn from this mistake, and each one would lead him closer and closer to what he was searching for.  Due to the override having taken over his drive, he was unable to exit the page, and so he had nothing else to do but stare at the letters written in white script.  
  
Little boys who play with fire get their fingers burned.  
  
“Oh, Donovan.  Still haven’t lost your taste for the dramatic, eh?”


	2. Abnormal

There was merit to both arguments. It could be argued that the girl in question - River Olivia Donovan-Jinks - was just like her mother – smart (no, brilliant), interested in everything, able to look at something and reconfigure it in twenty or thirty different ways, never kept out of anything simply by firewalls or locks or closed doors or passwords, fiercely independent, witty, always on the move. Fascinated by technology, video games, science fiction, anything with limitless possibilities.

And she was like her father, though it was more so physically. She had his eyes, his smile, and his somewhat unnerving and completely annoying ability to detect a lie the moment it was spoken. She was kind, thoughtful, loyal to a fault. Beloved by animals. Adoring of her family. 

But she didn’t believe any of that. How could she? She knew whose daughter she was. She was the Warehouse’s daughter.

More and more, Claudia was seeing her daughter less and less. It seemed like every time they were about to have a real conversation - to talk about the things that really mattered - there was a crisis that needed to be solved, there was a ping, or a Regent on fire, or something desperately wrong somewhere.

It seemed like every time they were going to fix things, something else came up.

It was their life and it always had been, but as they approached the worst time of the year – his birthday – Claudia was getting more and more frustrated with the pattern.

She had tried asking Myka, trying to figure out when she had crossed the line between a somewhat absent mother and a downright negligent mother. Instead of parenting, they had turned River over to the Warehouse. Myka hadn’t known what to say; it was the truth, and there was nothing they could do to change it.

And the girl was just fine with that. After all, the Warehouse had raised her.

It bothered her, probably too much. He’d been gone for four years, and she still got all flustered at his birthday… Christmas… their anniversary… River’s birthday… Thanksgiving… any time the Warehouse’s mishmash of a family celebrated together and he wasn’t there, it broke her heart again.

Four years. It could have been an eternity. It was an eternity. When she looked back over all of the things he’d missed, all of the things he was going to keep on missing – it took her breath away.

Luckily, the rest of the B and B’s occupants had the routine figured out. A week or so before any major holiday, she threw herself into work. Checking on pings that weren’t really pings, bothering the Regents about things they should have fixed months ago, doing endless rounds of inventory, berating everyone for not measuring up to her standards, and then going home and sleeping far too much. She knew it wasn’t healthy, but she just couldn’t stop herself. He was there in her dreams – there in a way that he just wasn’t anymore. She was tired of looking at the boxes of things in their closet, tired of relying on memories for what should have been reality. But in her dreams she could see him, talk to him, hold his hand; he was warm and whole and there. And if that was all she was going to get, she was going to take advantage of it.

River reacted in almost the exact opposite way. The usually-quiet, thoughtful girl went into what Myka referred to as “hyper-drive” close to her father’s birthday and her parents’ anniversary. She broke things on purpose, listened to her music louder than ever, stayed up all night reading or looking at the photo albums that she was convinced her mother didn’t know about, called Switzerland at all hours to chatter to Joshua about anything that got into her head. And though for the majority of the year River was an avoid-confrontation-at-all-costs pacifist, she picked fights with anyone and everyone who got in her way. At the same places in the calendar year when Claudia was giving up the fight, River turned into a manic, fearless, risk-taking fire-starter who couldn’t be trusted to keep her hands to herself.

It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t normal.

But then again, nothing in their lives was.


	3. Perry and Sinclair

“Come on, Erik, keep up!” Agent Jenna Perry hollered to her partner as they sprinted down a back alley in Soderborg, Minnesota.

“Seriously? Do you know how heavy this thing is?” Erik Sinclair was stumbling along behind her, trying to keep from dropping Lawrence Welk’s accordion. 

Due to some sort of mutual miscommunication, they had forgotten static bags. The artifact was causing people in the city to dance uncontrollably, and they had only one chance to get it away from a sadistic bandleader determined to use it for his own profit, so they had no choice but to haul the accordion back to the car.

It didn’t help that it was pouring rain, either. Or that Erik was, in his own words, “a teddy bear of a guy,” chubby and good-natured and not the first candidate to make a habit of stealing mystical musical instruments from sadistic Minnesotan bandleaders.

“Besides, who is chasing us?” Erik asked as he caught up with Jenna. “That bandleader guy was at least eighty-five. If he gives chase, I quit.”

They managed to get to their parked vehicle two blocks up. Jenna threw open the back hatch and scouted around for the largest size of static bag. “Okay, okay, drop it in,” she said, peeling open the top of the bag.

Erik looked like he wanted to cuss her out, but he managed to haul the accordion up and squeeze it into the bag. Both agents ducked their heads, expecting the usual flare of sparks and energy.

Nothing.

“Shoot,” Erik said.

Jenna opened the bag and looked down at it. “Why didn’t it…?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Are you sure this is the right accordion?”

“What other accordion could it have been?”

“We were in a Polish dance hall! There were at least forty accordions there!”

“This isn’t going to get easier if you yell at me,” Erik said crossly. He grabbed his Farnsworth from his pocket and flipped it open. “We’ll just ask the boss lady.”

However, it was not “Boss Lady” but River on the other end. “Boss lady went home for the evening,” she informed Erik, making mocking air quotes around the words “boss lady,” rolling her eyes at Erik’s description of her mother. “And I think Myka and HG are playing Tesla tag in the Prussian Quadrangle, so I’m the best you’ve got. What’s up?”

“We bagged the wrong accordion,” Jenna said, leaning over.

“How on earth did you manage that?” River asked incredulously.

“Polish dance hall! Forty accordions!” Jenna threw her arms up in the air.

“Let me see the one you got,” River said.

Obligingly Erik held the Farnsworth over the bag, showing the girl the accordion. “See?”

“Oh, no, that’s not it,” River said, nearly immediately. “It doesn’t even look like it.”

There was a moment of frantic typing, and then River turned the Farnsworth towards the computer screen. “See? Totally different.”

“They look the same to me,” Erik groused.

“Erik, you muffin, it didn’t spark,” Jenna said, using one of her favorite epithets for her partner. “Big fat nothing. And now we’ve got to break back into the Polish dance hall and steal another accordion.”

“Just another Saturday night,” Erik said, rolling his eyes.

“It’s Friday!” Jenna told him.

River hung up on them unceremoniously, and Jenna swore as she did. Sometimes the girl was so like her mother it made her want to smash something. Biting her lip, she looked over at her partner, whose brow was furrowed in concentration. She snapped the Farnsworth closed and thought for a moment. She really had no interest in going back to the dance hall; it had smelled funny and was full of rude, irritating men and annoying Polish polka music.

“What do you think, Erik?”

The agent looked up, surprised.

“You’re looking for my input?”

“Duh, that’s why you’re here, Sinclair.”

“I thought it was my good looks and easy charm with the ladies.”

“Oh you’re useless.”

She threw open the car door, back out into the rain. A moment later, her partner appeared by her side, still huffing and puffing slightly from his earlier run. Jenna contemplated a moment, trying to think of a solution. It would be difficult to retrieve the accordion now; the men at the dance hall all knew what they looked like now and it wouldn’t be long before the old bastard started to play the accordion again.

“I suppose we’re just going to have to hot foot it back there,” she sighed. “Come on, Sinclair.”

Her partner groaned.

“How about I drive around and see if I see anyone?” he suggested hopefully. Despite the fact that it wasn’t half a bad idea, Jenna had no interest in running back to the dance hall by herself.

“And I get to walk back by myself in the rain? As if,” she snapped. “Let’s go.”

Thankfully the trip was short. However, when they got there, the scene was quite different than they had expected. Thankfully, Jenna was always prepared, and she pulled out a tiny flashlight and flicked it on cautiously as they made their way around the dark corner, towards the sound of loud, argumentative voices. She quickly turned off the flashlight, afraid of being seen.

The street was completely dark. Every building was out of power, and even the street lamps had failed. The only lights visible were from an emergency phone off in distance, and a klieg light set up across the street, where a crew had been repairing part of the road. Other than that, there was nothing to be seen. Confused, Jenna tried to squint in the darkness, listening to the indistinguishable but unmistakably panicked voices floating their direction.

She wouldn’t have found this situation odd if it weren’t for the almost unfailing reliability of power these days, especially in a Midwestern town like this. There were no power lines, as the whole system was underground, and even in a flood it would still hold. Hell, even a tornado. Only the power company could shut down the power, and it would take a genius to break in.

She started and lashed out instinctually as a hand touched her sleeve, only to hear Erik’s reproachful voice.

“Ouch!” he hissed.

“Don’t startle me like that!” she countered in an angry whisper.

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were scared of the dark,” he teased.

“Shut up. What do you want?”

“I have these.”

Jenna felt something being pressed into the palm of her hand, and as she took it, she realized instantly what it was, and for a brief second, she could have kissed her partner. They were a pair of lightweight goggles, a project her partner had been working on for the last few weeks. Of course, Jenna would never be seen in public wearing them, but the beauty of these was that there was no need to be seen. They were special, light capturing night vision goggles that gave the wearer the vision equivalent to that of an owl in the dark. She smiled in the dark, and punched her partner lightly in the shoulder.

“Ow,” he grumbled.

“Oh hush, you muffin.”

As she put the goggles on, she felt something vibrating in her pocket, and as she turned them on, she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She could see almost like it was daytime, except it wasn’t as bright. Flipping her phone open, she noticed the new text message and opened it. It was very short.

_You have ten minutes._

Jenna shook her head as she looked at her phone. It was running on the Warehouse network; the super-sophisticated system was the only phone network that would work in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or deep in a subterranean cave. Even after fifteen years, phone companies still hadn’t managed to give their customers world-wide service. If the phone was working on the Warehouse network, then then all satellite signals, radio transmissions, and cellular networks must have been killed.

How could she have forgotten? There was only one person who could knock out an entire town’s power in five minutes flat and Jenna and Erik just happened to be working for her.

 

They were an odd pair – Sinclair and Perry. Perry and Sinclair. Sometimes Jenna still bemoaned the fates, wondering how she could have gotten stuck with such a partner. But she knew, as everyone who saw them in action did, that they were perfect together. The fact that they were polar opposites was often cited as the reasoning behind their impeccable retrieval rate and overall impressive teamwork in the field. 

Erik Sinclair was from a working-class family in the Pacific Northwest; he’d spent his childhood playing video games, roughhousing with his younger brothers, and learning how to make risotto, courtesy of his Italian grandmother, who lived with the family until he was fifteen. Erik had a degree in computer forensics from MIT and a second degree in cryptography from Freeman-Mason University in Ohio. He was the Secret Service agent in charge of IT and computer security when he received his “invitation to endless wonder.” And while he had originally refused, his insatiable curiosity had eventually gotten the better of him, and he’d headed out to South Dakota. He still couldn’t believe it had taken him two months to make “the right decision.”

Jenna Perry had been raised by wealthy parents, trust-fund babies who were accustomed to getting absolutely the best. After spending her formative years in prestigious prep schools in New York and Massachusetts, Jenna earned her degree in fashion design and marketing at NYU. It was only after she witnessed a murder during Fashion Week that she considered a career change. She had been part of the Secret Service only six months when she was recommended for what, at the time, she felt was a demotion. But just like Erik, Jenna could no longer imagine her life without the Warehouse.

Erik was funny, easy-going, and completely comfortable with himself, a techie with a love for backyard campfires and James Bond movies. Jenna preferred Broadway shows, matching socks, and yelling at anyone who used her brown sugar-acai berry-nutmeg face cream. And somehow they worked so well together.

They weren’t without their struggles, but honestly, all partnerships had them. Sure, Erik had once dropped Jenna off a cliff in England – “There was a _lake_ below!” was his favorite retort – and sure, Jenna was guilty of lighting Erik on fire with The Amazing Mercutio’s fiery swallowing swords. They fought like brother and sister sometimes at the B &B, usually over Jenna’s love of long, long showers. They had gotten through terrible things before, and there were probably scads more terrible things to come. But together they had focus, intelligence, and creativity.

What they didn’t have was that damned accordion.

 

“Okay, Sinclair, what’s the plan?” Jenna whispered as her eyes adjusted to the pressure of the goggles. 

Across the street, the attendees of the Polish Dance Night were streaming out into the thoroughfare, trying to make sense of the power outage.

“We could always go with the bait-and-switch,” Erik said. “I run out there, scare the crap out of some Polish senior citizens, and you… dart behind me and grab the right accordion.”

“How come I always have to do the heavy lifting?”

“Okay, fine. _You_ go scare the senior citizens, and _I’ll_ go get the accordion.”

“No. You didn’t get the right one last time.”

“Well, you didn’t like either of those plans, so I guess we’re just going to stand here staring at a Polish dance hall until we die,” Erik said.

“I don’t like that plan, either.”

“Fine, then, Elle Woods, you’re now the brain of the plan,” Erik said, using his favorite taunt for Jenna. He claimed she reminded him of a character in a series of movies about a blond who’d gotten into Harvard Law School to chase boys. Jenna didn’t see the comparison, nor did she find it funny.

“Uh, okay,” Jenna said. “What do you have in your magic bag?”

Erik took off his backpack and rummaged around. “I’ve got… two Snickers bars, half a Fresca, a Tesla grenade, a big static bag, a set of lock picks, a picture of my grandmother in Vegas, and the new Danielle Steele book.”

“I thought she was dead.”

“Yeah, she is,” Erik said. “Or she will be, when everyone reads this book.”

“I meant your grandmother.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s dead too.”

“Okay, fine, we’re going in light,” Jenna said. “How about we just do it old school? The make a break for it plan? We’ll head for the back entrance and go in through the store-room like we did last time.”

Erik put his backpack back on. “I like it. Let’s go.”

“On my count,” Jenna said, adjusting the goggles. “One… two…”

“Three!” Erik said, and took off for the back of the dance hall.

When Jenna caught up with him, he was already picking the lock on the back door of the dance hall. “You run fast for a teddy bear,” she said, gasping.

“I’ve been jogging,” he said, beaming. He jammed a sharp pick into the door with the ball of his hand and the lock gave way with a surprising _eeeeh_. “And we’re in.”

“You just love saying that, don’t you?”

Teslas drawn, they moved through the store-room cautiously. As before, the store-room was filled with boxes of song-books, racks of worn-out clogs, piles of folding chairs, and carton after carton of pickled eggs. There was a bass drum inexplicably shoved up against the far wall, next to a hissing water heater that had, like the majority of the dance hall, seen better days.

“I’ll get the door,” Erik said. “Cover me.”

“Covering,” Jenna said, and she slid into position next to the door.

Erik grabbed the knob and squeezed his eyes shut, gathering his courage.

“It’s not going to ask you on a date, Sinclair,” Jenna muttered.

“And _three,_ ” Erik whispered, and yanked the door open.

The dance hall’s largest room, a big square area with green tiled floors and pictures of saints on the walls, was completely deserted. Folding chairs had been knocked over as though the room’s occupants had been in a hurry to leave the dance party.

“I only count five accordions,” Erik said as he moved cautiously towards the bandleader’s podium. 

“Substantially less than last time. Man, those Poles and their accordions… Do you see the right one?”

“I think so,” Jenna said as they crept up to the carpeted platform. “It’s red, right?”

“You’re asking me? I’m clearly the muscle in this operation,” Erik said.

“Then get me a static bag and provide cover,” Jenna said.

Erik found the static bag in his backpack and handed it to Jenna, along with a pair of purple gloves, then proceeded to scan the room with his Tesla, obviously fearing the return of the angry Polish bandleader.

Jenna snapped on the gloves and hefted the most likely accordion, shoving it into the static bag. There was a flare of sparks and energy as the accordion was neutralized, and Jenna breathed a sigh of relief. 

“We got the right one,” she said to Erik. “Chalk up another success for Perry and Sinclair.”

The pair froze as they heard footsteps coming down the hallway. “Ach, Waclaw! Nobody’s trying to take your accordion, you paranoid git!”

“And now it’s time for another Perry and Sinclair masterful escape,” Erik said. “Just hold that accordion and _run_ , Elle Woods.”


	4. A Birthday and Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm back...yeah, sorry to all of you who have been reading this, but if you still are, yahoo! Anyways, again, thank you to memorysdaughter of fanfiction.net for collaborating with me on this story, and as a side note (and something I will be doing from here on out), this chapter and the last are mostly accredited to her. 
> 
> Also, note the absence of any italics. It is because I am lazy, and there are too many separate ones....yeah I swear this is the only time I'll get this lazy. Also, I swear I'll update. I feel bad, so you all are probably going to get several chapters tonight.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading, and enjoy!

She was exhausted by the time she got to her bedroom. First there had been the debacle with the wrong accordion. After that, she’d had to spend several long minutes pulling back up the entire electrical grid of Soderborg, Minnesota. And just when she’d thought it was safe to go home, her darling daughter had somehow rerouted an electrical charge from a taken-apart Tesla through the stem of a Phillips head screwdriver, crashing the electrical system that controlled the Umbilicus doors, necessitating another long series of minutes – half to fix the problem, the other half to yell at River even though she knew that the second she left, River would be back at it again with her fiddly little tools. Claudia would find the girl sprawled out on the office’s Oriental rug in the morning, tiny screwdriver in her hand and electrical burns on her fingers as she grumbled in her sleep. It was River’s preferred method of investigating – try stuff until she passed out from exhaustion.

Speaking of exhaustion…

Claudia closed the door behind her and relished in the firm clack of the lock. Her bed was calling to her, lavish with plump pillows and comfortable blankets. She kicked off her boots, didn’t bother to undress (sure there would be one crisis or another sooner or later), and crawled into bed.

By the light of the bedside lamp, she stared at his picture. His smile. Her daughter’s smile.  
Their daughter’s smile.

“If you were here right now, I’d hug you,” she whispered. “And then I’d break your kneecaps for missing so damn much.”

He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there for so long.

She put the picture back on the table and switched off the light.

Darkness reached up with long, spidery fingers and yanked her downwards.

 

“Claudia, get back in the car.” Pete’s voice was the first thing she heard.

“What? What is it?” Words spilled out of her mouth. She was asking the same inane questions; she hadn’t been in this space, in this place for more than eighteen years, and yet every time she showed up here in her dreams, she asked the same questions.

“Get back in the car.”

And then she was sliding, running, climbing, screaming, crying.

Over and over again.

There he was, before her eyes, dead.

I remember this.

Dead.

Blue-gray dead. All the life gone from his eyes. And yet he was still reaching out, as though he’d been trying to grab his life back from the person who’d stolen it away.

But when she touched his hand, scarcely daring to believe her eyes, he grabbed on, fiercely, as though he was trying to comfort her.

“Claudia, it’s all right! We’re okay! Myka’s got everything under control!”

And then someone was screaming, somewhere – she registered far too late that it was her. They were somewhere else, another place she recognized as full of pain and noise and beginnings and endings.

In the driver’s seat of the SUV, Myka was swearing and slamming her hand against the steering wheel. Outside, the too-white façade of a South Dakota winter was spinning as the large vehicle lost traction, fishtailing across the two-lane back road.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Steve was saying. He was right in her face and she it was hard for her to bear – she was so close to him. “You’re okay. Just squeeze my hand.”

Pain jolted through her body again, a searing, soaring wave that grabbed her around the waist, tightened like a noose around her swollen belly, and shoved itself up her spine. She howled and grabbed Steve’s hands, tighter, tighter.

“I remember this,” she whispered as the pain receded, but Steve wasn’t paying attention to her.

“Good, good,” Steve said. “Artie, what was that one?”

“They’re still five minutes apart, but I think they’re getting stronger,” Artie said from the front seat. He was gripping his seatbelt in one hand and a stopwatch in the other hand. “Myka, I know you’re not used to driving in the snow, but could you maybe just…”

“Shut up!” Myka said as the SUV continued its tricky slide across the road. “Just be glad there aren’t any tractors or slow-moving snowplows for me to ram this car into.”

Steve leaned in and smoothed her hair back from her sweaty face. “You’re doing great.”

“Lie,” Claudia croaked. She felt like she was being twirled in a blender.

“That’s my line,” Steve said, and smiled at her.

That smile.

“We’ll be at the hospital in no time,” Steve said. “On the next contraction, just remember to breathe.”

And the SUV went sliding again.

Myka swore.

The pain reared up and grabbed her again. Claudia gripped Steve’s hands tightly and tried to breathe. 

“Just… please…”

And there he was again, fallen away from her, his head tilted at that appalling angle.

Myka coming up behind her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

But she wouldn’t let go of his hand.

“It’s okay, just hang on,” he said.

The SUV was doing another one of its circular spins as Myka tried desperately to pull it out of the slide. “I thought this thing had all-wheel drive,” she muttered to Artie.

The pain was just too big. Her vision was getting spotty at the edges and her chest felt like a bear was sitting on it. “Help,” Claudia managed to say. “Help.”

“Claudia,” Steve said, leaning over her. His eyes were worried. “Claudia?”

There was a series of bangs, each one louder and more threatening than the last.

Bang.

“Claudia?”

Bang.

“Claudia! We need your help!”

Bang.

 

Her eyes flew open and she registered a few things: One, it was just past two in the morning. Two, the bangs were courtesy of Myka and HG, who were on the other side of her locked bedroom door, knocking as though their lives depended on it. Three, it was Steve’s birthday. Happy Birthday.

She groggily got out of bed and unlocked the door. As she pulled it open, she grabbed for her boots. “What is it?”

“The usual,” HG said as Claudia slid her boots on.

“Again?”

“At least this time she waited until after midnight.”

“Yeah, the Univille Volunteer Fire Department’s not really going to see that as a plus,” Claudia said,  
yawning.

“Look at the bright side – maybe we’ll finally run out of things for her to light on fire,” Myka said.

“Either that or she’ll move onto something we don’t own,” Claudia said.

“Do you worry about her?” HG asked quietly.

“More than you can ever know,” Claudia said. “Just get me some water, all right?”

Still yawning, she clomped down the stairs. Sure enough, through the back doors she could see her little pyromaniac, standing in front of what had once been a lovely crabapple tree.

Claudia stepped out onto the back patio and watched her daughter. There was something new and odd in the rigid way River held her body. In the odd light from the burning tree, she didn’t look like Claudia’s daughter. She looked like a stranger.

It was an illusion that was quickly squashed when Claudia walked up next to the girl. River’s braids had been messily caught up behind her head – the better to pour lighter fluid on a tree without burning one’s hair – and there were tears streaming down her face.

“You know,” Claudia said, trying to sound conversational, “there are better and more traditional ways to celebrate birthdays. Some would say… cake… is an acceptable medium.”

River reached up and smeared the tears off her face, and for a moment Claudia saw the lost girl of her youth, the one who had kidnapped a government agent and held him prisoner in a laboratory for all the right reasons. “Can’t light cake on fire.”

“Not with that attitude,” Claudia said, only somewhat sarcastically.

For a moment they stared at the tree as it burned, shooting off little flares and tongues of flame into the night.

“What are you going to do when we run out of trees?” Claudia asked, putting her arm around her daughter.

River flinched as her mother’s arm settled on her shoulder, but then she leaned into the embrace. “I was thinking I’d build a tool shed…”


	5. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! Another one! First half goes to memorysdaugther, second half is mine. Enjoy, give kudos, leave comments! We accept constructive criticism! Thank you!

Once the tree was put out and she’d drank enough tea to satisfy her mother, River curled up in bed with her favorite picture album. She trailed her fingers over the ribbons on the cover as she opened it. _Wish you would just come home, Dad._ She looked down at the first picture in the album – her on the swings at the park, her mouth open in glee, her long hair streaming out behind her, and her dad there to keep her going _higher, higher! __It was such a simple, almost meaningless moment in a person’s life, but the joy it brought her was worth it._

Or the second picture – her dad kneeling, watching as toddler River took her first steps in the Warehouse’s Pillow and Quilt aisle (“The safest place to fall on your face,” as Claudia had dubbed it). There was a brown-and-white blur to the far side of the picture as Trailer the dog, thinking Steve was in a playful mood, rushed both girl and her father.

Or the third, taken mere seconds after the previous one, as River gripped Trailer’s fur with a big drooly smile on her face, both dog and girl on the floor.

Or…

_“River.” ___

She whirled around, confused. She was positive that she had just been in her bedroom. But it had been a strange night.

_“River.” ___

She was smack-dab in the middle of a Warehouse aisle, but nothing made sense. She didn’t recognize any of the artifacts around her.

However, as the Warehouse’s daughter, she had been trained well. Artie was the one who had given her the idea of a “Warehouse survival kit,” a little backpack she wore nearly all the time when doing inventory or just fooling around, carrying all of the things she would need if something went awry. And Myka had forced her to read the entire Manual as soon as she could read. Her mother’s contribution was something smaller and easier to handle - a copy of the Warehouse map that fit neatly onto the screen of an iPad. There was, in fact, an app for that.

She grabbed for her kit, only to realize that she wasn’t wearing it. Which was downright odd.

_“River.” ___

Everything around her looked blurry and unfamiliar. She reached out and tried to touch the closest artifact, but a crackle of light zapped her before she could get there.

“Hello?” she asked the general area around her.

_“River.” ___

The sixteen-year-old hesitated a moment, turning in a slow circle as she tried to locate the source of the voice she knew so well. She hardly dared to believe it. Could it really be...?

“Dad?” she asked hesitantly.

The Warehouse slid away from her, and she was back in the backyard, getting ready to light the tree.

“You don’t have to do this,” her father said from behind her.

“I said I was going to do it until you came home.”

“We’re running out of trees.”

“You’re not here. What does it matter to you?”

“Just because I’m not here doesn’t mean I’m not interested in what you’re doing.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, I can’t keep tabs on you when you’re awake.”

“So, dream stalking? How cliché.”

“Don’t you think I would come home if I could?”

River shrugged. “You’ve been gone four years. How am I supposed to know who you are now?”

“That hurts.”

“You know what else hurts? You leaving. Well, and Tesla-ing yourself. But they’re unrelated.”

She looked up at him, and all of a sudden he was someone else. His cold blue eyes stared down at her, his face hidden slightly by the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing. His mouth curled into a slight, ghostly grin that held no kindness.

This was not her father.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she took a step back, tentatively.

“Dad?” she said uncertainly.

Suddenly she was back in the Warehouse, and this time she was running. Something - or someone - was chasing her.

_“Stop!” __she screamed at it. “Leave me alone!”_

_Can’t stop. I never stop. Can’t stop. ___

Something snaked out and grabbed her ankle. She shrieked and tumbled forward, hard, onto her elbows.

_I know it’s just a dream but if it’s a dream then why – ___

Stunned by the impact, River tried to get up. Her head was fuzzy and her joints felt like they were made of cotton candy. She couldn’t stand – all she could do was turn around and see what was coming after her.

Something featureless and dark, shapeless like a cloud of black fabric, was sweeping up the Warehouse aisle behind her. It was turning off all the lights, turning artifacts into sudden eruptions of firework-like noise and explosions.

_Bang. ___

_Bang. ___

“Mom! Mom!” River screamed as the blackness got closer. _“Mom!” ___

_Bang. ___

 

“Shh, shh, I’m here,” Claudia said as she wrapped her arms around her daughter.

“Mom!” River howled, but she refused to wake up.

“River, wake up,” Claudia said. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

“Mom,” River whimpered, and then her face relaxed.

She rolled over and stopped shaking, nestling back into her covers, and Claudia exhaled after a moment, her heart pounding. After a moment, she looked towards HG, who was standing in the doorway.

“Hey,” she greeted the older woman.

“Claudia, Pete called,” HG said. “One of his men is missing.”

“Okay,” Claudia said. “I’ll… go see what we can do.”

She stood up and tried to smooth her mussed hair. She wanted some more sleep, but it wasn’t happening. 

“Will you just watch and make sure she’s… all right?”

_“Mom… he’s… he’s… in…” __River murmured, and then rolled over and went quiet._

“I’ll stay,” HG said.

Claudia decided that she had come to terms with the fact that sleep was overrated a long time ago. Seriously, what was the point in trying? She was plagued by horrific nightmares, and when she wasn’t being plagued, River was. As much as it worried her, she couldn’t merely sit with her all night long like she might have once upon a time. No, she had business to attend to.

The nice thing about being the Warehouse VIP was that she got her own office in the B&B - which was stupendous. She had always used to wonder where Mrs. Frederic lived, but as it turned out, she had long since left the Warehouse and lived somewhere in Rapid City. Claudia couldn’t imagine that sort of life; it wasn’t until she got a room at the B&B that she had felt like she belonged somewhere. She wasn’t entirely sure if River felt the same way, having grown up with artifacts and whatnot, but she seemed to love it. But Claudia sometimes wondered if River felt like she really belonged anywhere.

Sitting down at her computer, she turned it on, and then picked up her cell phone, and called Latimer’s Legion. Pete’s cell phone had gotten trashed some weeks ago, and because he enjoyed the break from constant phone calls, he decided to allow his secretary to be tortured for an extra month by the hundreds of calls that came in every day. Sure enough, the woman who answered the call seemed haggard, exhausted, but making a valiant attempt at friendliness all the same.

“Latimer’s Legion, where we provide security to the insecure. This is Doris. How may I direct your call?”

“Hello, I would like to speak with Mr. Latimer, please,” Claudia said assertively.

“Is Mr. Latimer expecting your call?”

“Yes.”

“May I take your name?”

“My name is Claudia Donovan.”

“One moment please, Miss Donovan,”

Claudia cringed slightly at being called “Miss.” Did she really sound that young? It was painful because, up until the last few months, she had always been referred to as “Mrs.” whenever she called somewhere, or spoke to someone. She herself often flip flopped between Donovan and Jinks, but she really went by both. However, it seemed that to most people, she was Donovan now. For some reason, people just didn’t remember Jinksy anymore. It was like he had never been born and yet he would always be Jinksy in her mind. Yet besides herself, River, and the Warehouse team, nobody else seemed to remember him, not even the Univille folks.

“Pete Lattimer here.”

Claudia had almost forgotten that she was speaking to Pete, and she quickly reorganized her thoughts.

“Lattimer. I thought you were under strict orders never to call after one in the morning,” she chided sternly.

“Mrs. Claudia Donovan, I presume? Special circumstances arose, and I need a genius.”

There was a brief pause in which Claudia smiled a bit at his playful formality. Then she decided to drop it.

“How are you, Pete?” she said with a smile.

“Oh, you know, playing hockey, drinking beer occasionally, being amazing in general. How are you?”

Though his question was casual, Claudia sensed the delicacy behind his playful manner. _How are you? __It was a question she was asked frequently, but for the last few years, she had never known how to respond. She always wanted to say _I’m slowly dying inside and I think my daughter wouldn’t care if she was permanently lost in the Warehouse, but otherwise I’m okay. __Of course, it wasn’t socially acceptable to say such a thing, even if it was true. However, usually it all boiled down to the same response.__

“I’m coping,” she said after a moment. “So, spill it, Sparticus.”

Pete hesitated, clearly realizing there was more to the situation than she was letting on, but thankfully he decided not to press her. He cleared his throat.

“Well, I’ve had a guy go missing on duty, and my security cameras have all been hacked,” he began.

“That’s enough for me to talk about for years,” Claudia said hurriedly, her heart lurching uncomfortably. “Were you able to trace them?”

“That’s what I was hoping you could help me with,” Pete said uneasily. “None of my boys can make any sense of what happened.”

Claudia was about to say she was going to be right over when she stopped herself, thinking over what Pete had just told her. Something was not right. Something was very wrong.

“Pete, I programmed those myself,” she said slowly. “Is there something you haven’t been telling me?”

Pete was silent on the other end of the phone, which was more than enough for Claudia.

“I’ll be there in two hours.”


	6. Lattimer's Legion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter credit mostly memorysdaughter. Enjoy!

Thankfully, the firm was massive, and it was easy to locate. It was a wild two hour drive to Pierre, and by the time she got there, she was fairly certain she was about to keel over from exhaustion. However, upon seeing her old friend, she was energized. The Caretaker missed seeing him around the Warehouse, he’d always brought such life to it. He looked good too; though his dark hair was flecked with grey, and he had finally started wearing glasses. There was nothing wrong with his vision; he just wanted an excuse to wear cool “shades”. He said they gave him an edge with the ladies, which Claudia wasn’t sure if she bought. He was still as fit as ever, and he still had that slightly manic look of a Warehouse agent.

“Hey, hey, girl!” he chimed, pulling her into a tight hug.

“Pete! You’re squishing me!” Claudia laughed, hugging him back. After a moment, he released her, and the two of them began walking towards the main entrance together.

“How’s the family?” Pete asked as he led the way through the mahogany-paneled foyer. “Has Myka gone crazy with power yet?”

“Like Myka would ever let power go to her head,” Claudia said. “She’s far too busy reading everything. And keeping our two agents in line. For grown-ups, sometimes they take an awful lot of supervision.”

“And the little pyromaniac?” Pete asked, stopping in front of the elevators.

“You remembered.”

“It’s on my calendar, Claud. It always is,” Pete said, and he gave her a sad smile.

He took her straight to the security suite, where two spark-plug-shaped men - one blond, one Asian - were sitting seriously before a bank of monitors. In the corner, a young man with glasses and mussed hair was focused intensely on a series of computers, making adjustments to dials and knobs as he tapped away at a keyboard.

When Pete entered, the two men at the monitors stood up immediately, straightening their ties and blazers. “Mr. Latimer.”

“At ease, gentlemen,” Pete said with his traditional disarming smile.

“Ma’am,” the two men mumbled.

Claudia gave them a smile. Pete certainly had them trained well.

“Gentlemen, Mrs. Donovan is here to look at the feeds from the night Barry disappeared,” Pete said. “Give her any help she needs.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the men said.

“And Scooter?” Pete said, looking over to the bespectacled young man in the corner. “Just let the lady do what she does best. See if you can pick up any pointers, all right?”

Scooter didn’t look up, but he saluted. Claudia smiled. He looked like Fargo.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes, Claud,” Pete said. “I need to go over a briefing with the morning squad.”

“Okay,” Claudia said. She pulled up one of the rolling chairs and set up her laptop on the counter.

Pete left, and one of the guys in suits handed Claudia a short USB cable. “We can download the feeds right into your computer,” he said.

“Awesome,” Claudia said, and she plugged in the cord. “So, when did Barry go missing?”

“Last Wednesday,” the blond man said. “Here’s a picture of Barry.”

He handed her a 4-by-6 photograph of a smiling man with curly dark hair wearing a suit and a blue-striped tie, posing in front of an American flag. “He was supposed to be on duty at the Warringham Mansion.”

“The...?”

“It’s a museum in Buffalo City,” the Asian man replied. “They’ve been having some problems with vandalism and theft, so the city council hired us to patrol the mansion during the night, and to upgrade their security systems.”

“And is Barry a reliable guy?”

“Yes, ma’am,” both men said without hesitation.

“He’s very serious about his job,” the blond man continued. “Never late. He’s really a stickler for being on time. He reads case files like we’re being tested on them. He trains the new guys.”

“And for him to go missing is just out of the world weird,” the Asian said. “Barry’s the guy we all look up to.”

The video files from the security cameras had popped up on Claudia’s computer, and she started to flick through them. The office compound had been completely wired for sound and video capabilities, and at least two people were always on duty in the security suite at all times. Pete was serious about making sure his employees were doing their jobs safely.

“What time did Barry’s shift start?” she asked.

“His team was scheduled to start surveillance at the mansion at ten-thirty p.m., ma’am.”

“And they left from here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

First Claudia looked through the security feeds from the office levels. Barry came on shift at eight p.m., went to the employees’ break room to clock in, and then went up to his office on the third floor. From there she tracked him through the building. He checked his email for ten minutes or so, did some filing, and read through two files. After that he unlocked the top drawer in his desk, removed his service revolver, and holstered the gun. He turned off the lights and left his office. On his way down to the parking garage, he stopped into two different offices. In one office, he dropped off a file. In the other, he merely paused for conversation. With that completed, Barry went down to the parking garage and started up the van that would transport the Latimer’s Legion employees to their job that night. Five other men exited the building, climbed in the van, and Barry drove the van out of the parking garage and out into the night.

“Okay, so, that all looks fine,” Claudia said. “Looks like he just went about his business.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the blond guy said. “Everything checked out here in-house. We looked at the files Barry was reading and they didn’t contain any information that would help us ascertain his whereabouts.”

“So he went missing from the museum?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the Asian man said. “Those video files are in the folder marked Wednesday Night Shift. But you won’t be able to see much.”

“Because it’s dark? You know they’re night vision cameras, right?”

“No, ma’am,” the blond said. “Because of... well, you’ll just have to see.”

Claudia called up the first file and watched a scintillating four and a half minutes of Barry patrolling the exterior of the museum. “Okay, so...?”

“In the next file,” the blond man coached.

Claudia pulled up the second file. Barry was standing at the place where the museum’s parking lot met up with the mansion’s gate-house, looking seriously at something to the right of the gate-house. The security guard’s attention was concentrated on a small copse of trees. “What is he seeing?” Claudia murmured.

Barry pressed his ear, as though speaking into an earpiece, and then drew his gun, moving towards the trees.

“Did he radio for assistance?” Claudia asked.

The two guards exchanged a glance. “We believe he thought he radioed for assistance, ma’am,” the Asian man said. “But none of the other guards reported hearing his call.”

“And we checked the radio feeds,” the blond guard added. “Nothing.”

Barry took a few steps towards the trees and said something. Then he repeated it, louder, raising his gun.

A hand snaked out from the guard shack, a strange-looking weapon gripped in strong fingers, and -

The image died, the screen suddenly fuzzy with purple static. Claudia jerked back from the screen.

“All of the camera feeds look like that,” the Asian man said. “We checked.”

“And Scooter ran a back trace on the feed,” the blond man said. “He couldn’t find the source.”

“How long does the static go on for?” Claudia asked.

“Seventeen minutes,” Scooter replied from the corner.

“And there’s no message contained in the feed?”

At this the young techie looked up. “I didn’t... I didn’t think about that. It just looks like static. I thought it was a problem with the hardware. They’ve been recalling some of the newer-model Aspen cameras because of a fault with the hard drive, and...”

Claudia stopped the video feed on the screen and ran the static through an image enhancement program. Slowly, layer after layer of the static was peeled away, coming off in stripes of black, purple, and white.

And there, at the bottom of the image, hidden under eighty-four layers of carefully-constructed static, were two words. Two words that drove spikes through Claudia’s heart and made her head swim.

_Knock. Knock. ___


	7. Fire & Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter credit to memorysdaughter

“Hey, boss, we’re back from Minnesota!” Erik called as he carried Lawrence Welk’s accordion into the office.

Jenna had gone before him to open the doors, and she swept one arm out in a welcoming gesture. “And we brought you a souvenir.”

Myka turned around. “I’m glad you two are back.”

“Uh-oh,” Erik said. “That’s never good.”

“Another ping already?” Jenna asked.

Myka brushed her curly hair back from her face. “No, but... it’s been an unusual series of hours.”

“Where’s Boss Lady?” Erik wanted to know.

“She got called away,” Myka said. “And that accordion needs to go in the Polka Pit.”

“That’s a place?” Erik looked surprised.

A rare smile crossed the senior Warehouse agent’s face. “No,” she said. “But doesn’t it sound like it should be?”

“I’m still astonished that ‘Prussian Quadrangle’ is a place,” Erik said, shrugging.

“Take the accordion to Edinburgh 50-45,” Myka said. “And whatever you do, don’t touch the harmonicas!”

“Aye, aye, captain. Back in a kish,” Erik said as he headed out, still lugging the accordion.

Jenna sat down at the desk and looked over at the older agent. “What are you not telling me?”

Myka looked over at the pretty blond girl. For someone who’d spent the night running through the rain-soaked streets of Minnesota and sitting knee-to-knee with businessmen on a red-eye flight back to South Dakota, Jenna looked amazing. She always looked good. Occasionally it was irritating.

“Uh, you know,” Myka stalled. “Just... things get hot around here sometimes.”

It was a poor choice of words, because immediately Jenna looked worried. “Oh, no, did she light another tree on fire?”

Myka nodded.

Jenna looked irritated. “We _used_ to have a nice yard.”

“I know,” Myka said.

“The girl is sixteen years old,” Jenna went on. “She needs to learn that she can’t just light trees on fire every time things don’t go her way. Look, when I was fifteen years old my father was convicted of insider trading and went to _jail_ for six years. _I_ didn’t light anything on fire.”

“Because you lived in a penthouse,” Erik said as he breezed back in. “What would you have lit on fire? Money? Some designer clothes?”

“Oh, and I suppose you’re going to tell me that you were a young pyromaniac at her age?”

“I had four younger brothers,” Erik said. “Of _course_ we lit stuff on fire. Trees, shrubs, our shoes, textbooks, my sister’s Barbies, bedding, illegally produced bottle rockets...”

“Okay, okay, rocket man,” Jenna said. “I get it. But honestly, Myka, Agent Jinks has been gone for four years, and she’s still lighting trees on fire. Does she think he’s going to... _see_ them and decide to come home? Is it a distress signal?”

“I don’t know what it is,” Myka said. “But I think I prefer burned trees to reckless use of artifacts.”

“Yeah, my toenails still haven’t grown back yet,” Erik grumbled.

Myka pointed a finger at him, grinning. “That was your own fault, Agent Sinclair.”

She looked over at the two agents. “All right, go home, rest up. There’s no telling when the next ping will pop up... and until then, there’s always inventory.”

Jenna got up and headed for the door, Erik loping behind her.

“Oh! And when you get home - be quiet!” Myka called after them. With any luck, River would have calmed down enough to sleep.

 

HG looked down at the worried girl in the bed. River was sleeping, but it wasn’t peaceful. Every so often her hands would jerk up as though she was trying to shield herself from some oncoming enemy, and she alternated between panicked, frantic whimpering and calling out for her mother.

“Sweetheart,” HG said as she gently stroked River’s forehead. “Sweetheart, wherever you are, it’s all right.”

 

Panicked and terrified, River stumbled through the Warehouse aisles. If she could just make it back to the office, just find her kit, she’d be all right. But she had to get there first.

Artifacts were buzzing and fizzing and popping; static energy flowing frantically everywhere. Bursts of light and glass were showering down around her. The floor underneath her feet seemed to be shifting, like the floor in a funhouse. A not-so-fun funhouse.

She tore down the aisle, sneakers skidding, and hooked her arm around the closest shelf upright, propelling her into a turn. Something hit the floor behind her, but she didn’t stop to see what it was.

The floor buckled up under her and she veered forward, heedless, unable to stop. “No, no, no, no, no!”

Her arms flailed out in front of her and she grabbed for the life-saving backpack that wasn’t there, desperate for its help. Instead she found herself off balance, falling down a concrete floor that was suddenly as slick as ice, as slippery as a well-lubricated water slide.

“Mom! _Mom!_ No, no, _no, NO!_ ”

River slid inexorably towards an end she couldn’t see. She threw her arms up to try to brace herself against the inevitable impact. With a rib-cracking smash she hit whatever was in front of her, and curled up in a fetal position against her resting point. She pulled herself in on herself, sobbing as pain radiated through her body. “No,” she said weakly.

She heard footsteps coming closer, closer, but she couldn’t move. “Go away. Go away,” she pleaded.

Strong hands reached down and grabbed her roughly, yanking her upright by her forearms. “Come on. Up,” a stern voice said. “Up. Good girl.”

River writhed against the grip, trying to turn around and see her mysterious assailant.

“Good girl, good girl,” the stern voice continued. _“Now look.”_

The angry hands wrenched her around, and River was suddenly staring into a tall, glassy mirror. Her first thought was the mirror of Erised, recalling that dramatic chapter in the first Harry Potter book (one of her favorites). The image was unclear, fuzzy, and no matter how she squinted, River couldn’t see any image.

And then the image cleared.

“Dad?” River asked confusedly. “No... no, it’s not you. It’s not you.”

She tried to turn around, to see who held her in front of the mirror, but the grip on her shoulders was too tight.

And with one angry shove, River found herself hurtling through the glass head-first.

She screamed...

 

… and found herself being pulled upright, words being uttered hurriedly in her direction that she could not understand.

“No, stop, stop, please,” she begged, throwing her hands up to protect herself.

“River, sweetheart, you’re safe. You’re awake,” HG said. “Shh, darling.”

River blinked, confused. The words still weren’t making sense, and there was a strange dark-haired woman in front of her, mouth moving, hands on her shoulders. “No, no, go...”

“Shh, shh,” HG said, and she pulled the girl against her, stroking River’s head.

“Mom,” River said, still somewhat baffled as the world slowly fell into place around her. “Mom, he’s... he’s...”

But she ran out of words, and had to settle for HG’s tight embrace and gentle ministrations as tears flowed down her face.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter credit library_of_crazy

“What in the name of sanity is that supposed to mean?” the tech asked, completely baffled.

Claudia stared at the screen, hardly daring to breathe. Her brain was working so quickly that everything she did seemed to be in slow motion.

“Can I get a printout of this?” she said hoarsely. The youth nodded uncertainly.

“There’s a printer next door. Are you feeling alright, ma’am?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. She began typing at top speed, and in a few seconds she had gained access to the PA system.

“Hey!” the tech said reproachfully.

However, before he could intervene, Claudia was speaking into the computer’s microphone, her voice amplified over the PA system.

“Peter Latimer, please report to your office immediately.”

Without another word, Claudia closed everything on the computer and walked briskly out of the office, turned right, walked into the copy room and snatched up the photograph. As she turned to walk out, she found the tech and the two guards waiting for her, looking extremely confused.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but what’s going on? What does that message mean?” the blond guard asked.

“It has meaning only to me, please try and understand that this is where your involvement ends,” Claudia said briskly, picking up an authoritative air. She could be in charge when she needed to be. “Thank you for your assistance, I will make sure this whole mess is cleaned up.”

That statement seemed to be enough for the two guards, who nodded and walked away like proper soldiers. However, as Claudia practically ran back into the hall, the young tech seemed determined to get more answers out of her. He followed her like a small annoying dog. She ignored him for a minute as she made her way to the elevator, but when he started speaking, she had to stop.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but what was that about? Is there something I can do to help? Perhaps we can find the culprit and –”

The Warehouse’s Caretaker whirled around to face him, staring him down with a look that would have made Mrs. Frederic proud. The youth’s words died in his throat without her having to say anything, and when she spoke, her voice was low, and deadly serious.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Weber,” he said quietly. “Scooter Weber.”

“Mr. Weber, I am grateful for your help. I really am. But I cannot even begin to tell you just how serious this situation is, and I cannot impose upon you enough how important it is that you do not get involved. If you value your life, and the lives of your family, then make it your life’s goal to _never to speak of this again._ Am I clear?”

Weber nodded, his mouth hanging open slightly. Claudia smiled grimly at him, but said nothing more. She stepped into the elevator, and the kid vanished from sight. Even as the doors closed, she could see he was still watching her. As soon as she was alone, Claudia leaned up against the back wall of the elevator, sliding down to the floor, her knees tucked up to her chest. She didn’t press any buttons; she was desperate for a moment to herself. Sure, there was a camera; but they were on the fritz anyways.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she ducked her head between her knees and tried to calm herself down. _Damn it, Jinksy, I need you!_ It was moments like these that she had never been more grateful to have him; his calming presence, the reassuring smile he always gave her when she was freaking out about something. He always seemed to settle her down, but now he was gone. Memories flooded her brain, and for a moment, she was transported back thirteen years ago to the Warehouse office…

 

_“Claud?” ___

_She didn’t respond to his worried voice; she was sitting in Artie’s chair, staring out at the Warehouse. Her Warehouse. She could feel its power in ways she had never felt before; she sensed every nook and cranny of every aisle, and knew every artifact. It was like the Warehouse was trying to speak to her, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to communicate with it. It was like they didn’t speak the same language, but were stuck in a room together. It was a nightmare. She hadn’t slept in days, she was exhausted, and the Regents kept bugging her._

_Claudia was vaguely aware of someone walking up behind her, but she still didn’t respond. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. ___

_“Hey,” he said, squeezing her shoulder gently, and kneeling down to her level. ___

_As he lowered to eye level, Claudia knew it was impossible not to look at him, and she turned her head. He looked worried, but not frantic. He didn’t look like he wanted to solve all of her problems, but like he was ready to listen to her, simply to be there, his icy blue eyes full of concern. His presence was so calming that she felt she could simply look into his eyes for an eternity and never have to face the world again. ___

_She tried to compose herself enough to say something to him. Instead, she broke down completely and practically fell into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably. ___

_“I can’t do this, Jinksy,” she cried helplessly. ___

_“Yes, you can,” he replied softly, wrapping his arms around her. ___

_She shook her head weakly. “How can I take over the job of a woman who had it for almost two hundred years? I can’t run the Warehouse, I’m useless in politics, I’m terrible at being intimidating, and really the only thing I’m good at is committing felonies.” ___

_She was more miserable than she could remember being in a long time, so it took her a few seconds to realize that he was laughing. Claudia was so surprised by this that she actually stopped crying. ___

_“Why are you laughing?” she whimpered pitifully, slightly hurt. ___

_“Claudia, do you realize how silly you’re sounding?” he said. “You can do all of those things! The Warehouse is more of a home to you than anyone else here. I can’t believe that you’re worried about politics, because you’re a fantastic arguer, and the Regents take care of most of that anyways. You don’t need to be intimidating, and let’s face it - it’s not going to be a problem for you. Also, you wired the Warehouse, you can play the guitar, you sing beautifully, you dance, and I’m pretty sure you set a world record in Tetris. Oh, and you’re an amazing mother to the smartest, sweetest, most fantastic little girl. I’m pretty sure you’re a lot more qualified than you think you are.” ___

_Staring at him with tear stained eyes, Claudia was grateful for everything he said, but despite it, she still was holding back tears. He frowned at her. ___

_“You’re probably right,” she hiccoughed, hastily pulling herself together, but still failing. She looked away from him and back out at the Warehouse.. ___

_“Claudia,” he said sternly. “What’s really bothering you?” ___

_Of course. He could read her like a book. Seeing no way out, she took a deep breath. The words were far more difficult than she had anticipated. ___

_“Mrs. Frederic outlived everyone she loved,” she said quietly, her voice breaking, and she found it impossible to continue. She cast a slight glance his way, but was unable to meet his gaze. ___

_“Claud, look at me,” Steve said gently. When she didn’t, she felt his hand on her cheek, and reluctantly turned to look at him, her hair falling around her face. He reached out with his other hand and brushed it away. ___

_“Claudia, you can’t live your life in anticipation of the inevitable coming to pass,” he said softly. “That’s a terrible, terrible way to live. I know it feels like a curse, but it’s also a gift. Life is a way of learning, Claudia, and everyone who is alive today is living for a purpose. Whatever life you live, your soul walks away with a better understanding of the universe. The fact that we exist at all is incredible, but if we take it for granted, and fear its ending, we lose purpose. Life is beautiful because it is short, and yet it is packed so full. It’s painful when it’s over, but without pain, we have nothing. What you have to remember is that no matter where you are, you will always find love.” ___

_Claudia could only stare at him, her mouth open slightly as she drank in his words. She sometimes had to remind herself of how wise her wonderful Jinksy really was, and how much he had to offer to her. If anything, he would have made a good candidate for this job. She hugged him tightly, as though he were the only thing keeping her alive. ___

_“Thank you,” she whispered. ___

_“I’m here for you, Claudia,” he replied. “Me and that beautiful little girl with my eyes and your attitude.” ___

_“I know. Just promise you’ll live to be a hundred, okay?”_

_“Only if you promise to frame a picture of a butterfly after I die and put it in your room for all eternity.” ___

_Claudia giggled. “So you actually are bent on being reincarnated as a butterfly?” ___

_“It’s been my life’s dream since you brought it up.” ___

_His voice was teasing now, and she finally let go of him and sat back upright in her chair again. Wiping her eyes, Claudia smiled at him genuinely now, her heart swelling. ___

_“I’ll stop being an emotional twat now,” she said definitively, standing up. Steve rose with her, rolling his eyes. ___

_“Claudia, you’re not an emotional twat,” he chided. She shrugged, sniffling slightly. Steve put an arm around her, smiling down at her affectionately. “I mean what I say about you being qualified. You’re a bright, energizing, and beautiful person.” ___

_“Now you’re just being mushy,” she teased, enjoying the compliments all the same. He raised an eyebrow, swung her in closer to him and kissed her briefly. ___

_“I’m your husband,” he said with a grin. “I believe it’s required. Now come on, I think Artie’s having a fit.” ___

_“The man was not cut out to be a long-term babysitter,” Claudia agreed. ___

_With that, the two of them left the office shoulder to shoulder, like two sides of a coin._

 

Claudia blinked. How long had she been sitting there? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? She couldn’t tell. Standing up quickly, she jammed the elevator button, and it lurched downward. Checking her watch, she was relieved to see that she had been thinking for only a couple of minutes. It was easy for her to get lost in thought these days, especially with the horrible nightmares she’d been having.

Pulling herself together, the elevator dinged, and she made her way towards Pete’s office. Thankfully, she had a good memory, because it was an excessive series of turns, past five or six identical offices to the one at the end that was the largest. Hoping he was already there, she tried the door. It was open, and so she slid inside quickly, closing the door behind her.

“You know, it’s polite to knock,” Pete said irritably. Claudia elected to ignore this statement.

“So,” she said. “What’s been going on?”

“I told you already,” Pete said. As an answer, Claudia tossed the printed message on top of his desk. He looked down at it, and she watched as the color drained from his face.

“Ah,” he said. “That’s new.”

“What has been going on, Pete?” Claudia growled. “This sort of thing doesn’t just happen. When did things start to go downhill?”

Pete heaved a sigh, looking up from the picture, and Claudia’s heart sank.

“Six months,” he said. “Back in May, we got a blip in the system. Nothing major, but we looked into it just to be safe. Nothing was missing, and we didn’t detect anything, so we let it go, but monitored the system more closely for an extra few weeks just in case.”

“You should have called me immediately,” Claudia grumbled. Pete frowned.

“About two months later, we had another blip in the system, but this time information was taken. What it was, nobody was able to determine, because nothing was missing. Whoever it was had just made copies. So, we tightened security.”

“ _Then __you should have called me,” Claudia said irritably._

“Two weeks after that incident he broke in again, but this time we caught him,” Pete continued, ignoring Claudia’s comments. She straightened up, listening intently. “He made a mistake this time, because we were able to track down the computer he was using, and his location.”

“So what did you get then?” 

“Well, he didn’t clean up his tracks properly, so we were able to trace some of his computer usage, where he checked an email. It’s not much, but his name is Ethan Crane. He even had a picture, though we can’t confirm whether or not it’s him.”

Pete handed her a slightly blurry photograph of a burly young man in a sweatshirt, smiling at the camera. He looked like he could be in his late twenties, which did not sound right to Claudia.

“No, our guy is older, he knows us,” she said grimly. “Although this person could be useful, I’ll run a scan on the picture and see if I can get a match. Did you find anything else?”

Pete shook his head.

“Sorry I didn’t contact you sooner.”

“Yeah, well...” Claudia trailed off, heaving a sigh. “Whoever he is, he’s learning fast, because I just had someone try and get past the Warehouse firewall.”

“They didn’t get anything, did they?” Pete said, alarmed.

“No, but neither did I. They were quick enough to pull out before I got to their computer, but hopefully they’ve lost the majority of their progress, so that will hold them up for a while which should give me enough time to update the security system.”

With that, Claudia decided it was time for her to leave. She needed to go directly to the Warehouse before Crane could try at hacking her system again. Silently willing him to burn in hell for all of eternity for screwing up her sleeping schedule, Claudia got to her feet.

“Thanks for letting me know Pete,” she said. “I’ll keep in touch. Watch your system. I’ll try and update it as soon as possible.”

Pete nodded. “What can I do to help?” he asked.

Claudia paused a moment, halfway out the door. She turned to look at her old friend, a smile playing at her lips.

“Keep your phone charged.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter credits to both memorysdaughter and library_of_crazy221b

Myka was just packing up to return to the B&B when the door of the Umbilicus swung open noisily, causing her to start. She spun around in her chair, and was surprised to see Claudia walking into the office.

“Uugggh,” she groaned. “Why do I have to fix everyone’s problems, _all the fracking time?_ ”

Myka couldn’t help but smile as Claudia walked right past her without noticing, plopped herself down at her computer and set to work. For a moment, she saw the twenty-year-old girl mucking about in the office like the old days, not the tired, lonely, and hurting woman she was now. Her eyes drooped with exhaustion as she began banging away at the keyboard, and Myka cleared her throat.

“Hey Claud,” she said, waving at her. Claudia jumped terribly, almost falling out of her chair.

“Sweet shizbangs,” she gasped. “You scared me.”

“How’d it go?” Myka pressed. Claudia groaned loudly. 

“Well, apart from the fact that one of Pete’s guys is probably dead, and that there’s some random evil dude trying to hack the Warehouse, and the fact that I have to stay up for the rest of the morning reprogramming the entire Warehouse security system, it went great!” she said cheerfully.

Myka would have found this funny if the situation weren’t such a serious one.

“What?” she asked, appalled. “Who tried to hack the Warehouse?”

“Some guy called Crane,” Claudia grumbled. “I’m going to try and find him. In the meantime, you’d better get Jenna and Erik out in the field ASAP, because we have to stop this guy, and fast. He’s smart enough to beat my system at the Legion. Of course, it’s nowhere near as advanced as this one, but still...”

“Wait, wait. Which one of Pete’s guys is dead?”

“Barry.”

“Oh, no, not Barry! He was the one who made those great cheese platters last year at Hanukkah. What happened?”

“I don’t exactly know,” Claudia sighed. “Our intruder knocked out the cameras, but he left us a lovely little note. Look at this,”

Claudia pulled out the picture and showed it to Myka.

“Claud... there are maybe five people in the _entire world_ who know what that means.” Myka whispered in horror.

“I know. I know. Which means somebody’s been doing some digging for a long time.”

“Maybe we should call Artie,” Myka suggested.

“Maybe, but for now, I need you to go back to the B&B and let everyone know what’s going on. I’ll probably be back around eight.”

Myka frowned. 

“All right, you okay here alone?” she asked.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Now go, go, go,” Claudia said, shooing her out the door. Myka smiled, turning to leave.

“See you later, Claudia. Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”

“Uh huh.”

With that, the curly haired agent stepped through the Umbilicus door, and disappeared, leaving the lone Caretaker to an ugly, early morning of programming. Could her night have gotten any better?

 

Immediately upon arriving back at the B&B, Jenna headed upstairs to scrub the mission away. Erik heard the shower crank on and knew it would be awhile before he could even get into the bathroom, so he decided to fulfill his major need – _food._

HG was in the kitchen, cutting a banana into a bowl of cereal. She looked up as the boyish agent entered. “Home already?”

“Once we got the right accordion, things were actually pretty easy,” Erik said.

“Amazing how much getting the correct artifact helps,” HG said, smiling.

“What’s for eats?” Erik asked, opening a cabinet and peering inside.

“There’s some leftover lasagna in the fridge,” HG said. “You’re welcome to it.”

She tossed the banana peel in the trash and picked up the cereal bowl.

“I didn’t know you were into Lucky Charms,” Erik said.

“I’m not,” HG said. “But girls who have bad dreams deserve a treat.”

“She had a rough night?”

“As rough as I’ve seen,” HG said. “Claudia’s probably seen worse, but she was… it’s like she just completely lost hold on the world for a little while.”

“That’s what dreams are supposed to be,” Erik said. “Although they’re supposed to be good.”

“Maybe after you fix the lawn mower, you could work on a good-dreams helmet or something of the like,” HG said, giving him a grin over her shoulder as she left the kitchen.

Erik had forgotten about the lawn mower.

He heated up some of the leftover lasagna and poured himself a glass of milk, grabbed a fork and a napkin and headed out to the living room. River was on the couch, wrapped up in her quilt, staring blankly at the turned-off TV. The bowl of Lucky Charms was in her hands.

“Hey, kiddo,” Erik said. “Heard you got into it with another tree.”

He didn’t get the expected smile, which made him realize how serious things really were.

“You want to watch some TV?”

She shook her head, eyes distant and far away.

“Okay, then,” Erik said.

He ate his lasagna and watched as River held onto the bowl of Lucky Charms as though it contained the secrets of the universe. She just kept staring at the TV as though some engaging program was playing for her eyes only.

When he’d finished eating, Erik put his plate on the coffee table and carefully pried the bowl of cereal out of River’s hands. She let him have it, and he set it on the table next to his plate. He watched as her hands curled in on themselves, making loose fists, as though she was expecting to have to fight someone off.

It was just too much for Erik. This wasn’t River. His River was goofy, smart, witty, engaged, and this girl before him bore no resemblance to her.

The silence in the room was driving him crazy. He got up and switched on the Xbox and the TV, intending to play away the minutes until Jenna was done with her inevitable “forever shower.”

One of his older games was in the disc drive; it was one of River’s favorites – “Harry Potter Lego.” Erik settled back onto the couch with the controller in his hands and soon was running through a brick version of Hogwarts, putting mini-figure Harry through his paces – casting spells, wearing an invisibility cloak, playing Quidditch, and looking for clues to the magical mysteries at hand.

He’d been playing for about twenty minutes when River spoke. “You missed the golden hat token,” she said, as though they’d been engaged in some sort of ongoing conversation.

“Did I?”

“It’s under the gate at the back of the dungeon.”

“Oh, yeah,” Erik said. “I always forget that one’s there.”

Dutifully, he went back and got the golden hat before resuming his mission. “I bet Harry would be a kickass Warehouse agent.”

“Luna would be better,” River said.

“Well, yeah,” Erik said. “Obviously.”

“’Cause she doesn’t care what people think of her. And she already knows about all the weird stuff going on in the world.”

“Yeah, but if you ever see a Krumple-Horned Snorkack or a bunch of Nargles, you need to come get me,” Erik said. “I’ve never seen _those_ in the Warehouse.”

“Were you ever wearing your Spectrespecs?”

“You know, I just always forget them.”

“Well, there you go,” she said. “That’s why you can’t see any of it.”

She curled up next to him, leaning against him as he hunted for potion ingredients.

Erik was a hardcore gamer, not easily distracted even when playing the most trivial game, and in a matter of moments he was quickly engrossed. He didn’t look up again until Jenna came into the living room, dressed in pajamas, a towel wrapped around her head turban-style. “That’s adorable,” she said.

“It’s Harry Potter. It’s not adorable. It’s magical,” Erik said.

“Open your eyes, Dumbledork,” Jenna said. “I’m talking about your cuddly accessory.”

Erik shifted in his seat and realized River had fallen asleep on his shoulder, drooling on his button-down. Carefully he set the controller on the coffee table and then repositioned her on the couch, resting her head on one of the pillows and straightening the blanket around her. Sleep-drunk and pliable, she quickly acclimated to the new position and curled in on herself.

“Crossed fingers for sweet dreams,” he whispered to her as he got up, leaving so that she could get some real sleep.


	10. Philo of Byzantium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter credit to memorysdaughter

Barry Fleischmann was suddenly thrown back into light as the hood was yanked off his head. Having been in darkness for so long, he was startled by the bright, unfamiliar light. He blinked repeatedly as he was shoved into a seated position, trying to make sense of the situation.

He knew this much - he had been abducted from his surveillance job at the Warringham Mansion and put roughly, into the back of a van, hooded and handcuffed. His captors had used some new-style stun gun, possibly an offshoot of the Taser modification that his boss, Peter Lattimer, was always going on about. Like most of the other guards in Lattimer’s Legion, Barry was under the impression that Taser mods were the stuff of “X-Files” episodes and men who chased Bigfoot on the Discovery Channel.

_If I survive this, I’ll have to let the guys know that Pete was actually right about this one. ___

Barry looked around the impersonal room. Tiled in white from the floor to the dropped ceiling, it could have been in a gym or a mental institution. There were no other clues.

Barry’s captor stepped in front of him, wheeling small metal table. On the table’s top was an elaborately-constructed box. It reminded Barry of a Japanese puzzle box; collecting the small, intricate boxes was one of his hobbies. Each box could take as many as forty-five unique movements to open before at last revealing the precious inner compartment. But Barry got the feeling that this Japanese puzzle box wasn’t holding an antique brooch or an old-style yen coin.

He looked up at his captor, a young man with broad shoulders and an air of absolute confidence, neatly dressed in a pristine black suit. The man’s pale face gave away nothing as he drew up a chair in front of Barry.

“Good evening,” his captor said. “I believe some introductions are in order.”

Barry tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry.

“My name is Aiden,” the young man said. “On behalf of my employer, I welcome you.”

He took out a small notebook and an expensive-looking pen. “Now, I have a few questions.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” Barry managed to ask.

Aiden smiled. It was the most frightening smile Barry had ever seen. “All in good time, my friend. All in good time. Now, please state your name for the record.”

Barry wasn’t an idiot. He, and the rest of Latimer’s Legion, had been trained for situations such as this. Of course, Barry would be the first person ever to have to use the interrogation survival techniques.

_Not really something you can brag about at softball practice,_ he thought sarcastically.

“I’m waiting,” Aiden said.

“Barry Isaac Fleischmann,” Barry replied.

“And your address?”

“One-five-nine South Stanberry Road, apartment number five-C, Pierre, South Dakota.”

“And do you live there alone?”

Barry hesitated. This line of questioning was more like a court deposition than the prelude to a torture session.

“I said, do you live there alone?”

“Um, yes.”

“Are you gainfully employed?”

“Yes.”

“At what institution are you employed?”

“Lattimer’s Legion. Providing security services. You know, business or home surveillance, professional bodyguards, event security… stuff like that.”

“How long have you been employed there?”

“Ten years.”

Aiden wrote this down with careful precision. “Quite a long time. You must enjoy your job.”

“It’s all right.”

“And who is your superior?”

“Well, everybody answers to Pete.”

“That would be Peter Lattimer?”

“Yes.”

“And how much do you know about Mr. Lattimer?”

“I know he’s a great guy.”

“That’s rather subjective, Barry,” Aiden said. “Could you be a little more specific?”

“He’s… hard-working. Empathetic. Understanding. We’re not his employees, we’re his friends.”

“But not like family?”

“It’s a job.”

“So, he must have his own family, then?”

Barry shrugged.

“Barry, Barry, Barry – you’ve worked there for ten years. Surely you must know a little more than that.”

“He dates, I guess,” Barry said. “And he has a sister. She lives in Missouri. Or is it Mississippi?”

“His parents?”

“Um, his dad died when he was a kid. And his mom is still alive. She’s really involved in charity work, I think. Like I said, we’re close but not that close.”

“Okay,” Aiden said, writing all of that down.

Barry felt sudden relief. He had answered all of the absolutely out-of-nowhere questions. They would let him go.

“Now that I know you can tell the truth, let’s move onto some more difficult questions,” Aiden said, looking up. “Barry, what do you know about Warehouse 13?”

Barry was confused. He’d never heard of that before. “I… it doesn’t mean anything to me. Is it a storage facility?”

Aiden smiled again. It was still terrifying, as though his teeth were tiny sharp needles. “You could say that.”

“I don’t know anything about it. I just direct the surveillance teams,” Barry said. “If you want to know about asset allocation, you should have kidnapped Keith Preiss from Resources.”

If he had any hope that Aiden would find it funny, that hope was immediately dashed when the man in the suit stood and moved to pick up the box.

“Have you seen this box, Barry?”

“Um, yes?”

“What do you think of this box?”

“It’s lovely.”

“Hmm,” Aiden said as he considered the box. “I suppose it could be beautiful.”

Still holding the box, he sat back down. “Do you believe that things have a dual nature, Barry? That something that causes pain could also be extremely beautiful?”

The interrogation had gone from “just the facts, ma’am” to “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” in five seconds. Barry was distinctly uncomfortable.

“Whether you believe it or not, Barry, it’s still true,” Aiden said. “Now, Barry, I don’t want to open the box. I don’t want to have to show you the face of true terror and pain that lies within these beautiful walls. But if you don’t start answering my questions, I’m going to have to open the box. And trust me, Barry, you don’t want what’s in here. I’m a man of my word, Barry. Do you understand that?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand.”

“Okay, good,” Aiden said. With one final glance at the box, he set it back on the table. “So let’s try this again. _What do you know about Warehouse 13? __”_

Barry’s stomach was nervous. “I don’t know anything about Warehouse 13.”

“Okay, okay,” Aiden said.

Barry looked over at the box. He felt like he was going to throw up.

“Let me try to put it in a context you might understand,” Aiden said, flicking back through the pages of his notebook. “What do you know about Project Christmas Tree?”

Relief flooded through Barry. “Oh! Project Christmas Tree. I didn’t know that was called Warehouse 13.”

“So you have heard of this project?”

“Yeah, I worked on it a couple months ago,” Barry said. “One of the computer security guys had to go to Hawaii to file for divorce, and I worked with their team. That was the name of the project we were working on.”

“Good,” Aiden said. “What was the purpose of Project Christmas Tree?”

“Just basic computer security,” Barry said. “At least, that’s my impression. We were working on a specialized firewall. I thought it might be for a government agency or something, hence the security.”

Aiden chuckled a bit at that. “Government.”

“Yeah, well, they never told us who it was for,” Barry said. “We built the better firewall, complete with non-authentic user ejection systems, and gave it to Pete. I guess he delivered it to the client.”

“Just what I wanted to hear, Barry,” Aiden said, marking that down in his notebook.

Then the young man snapped the notebook closed, tossed it on the metal table, and went back for the box.

Panic seized Barry again. “I told you everything I know!” he pleaded, unsure of why he felt so absolutely terrified at the sight of what should have been an innocuous box.

“Oh, I know,” Aiden said.

“So you don’t have to open the box!”

“Well, see, that’s where things get dicey,” Aiden said. “My employer, Mr. Crane, never really gave me instructions for the end game. He trusts me, so he lets me figure out what the end game should be. And Barry, I have to say, you’re a great guy. But I know that the second I let you go, you’re going to run back to Lattimer’s Legion and tell them everything. You’ll give them a description of me, one that hits eighteen points on the Assailant Identification Project’s scale, because you’ve been trained to do so. You’ll be able to tell them what I asked you, including my interest in Project Christmas Tree and Warehouse 13. And before my employer gets what he’s looking for, Lattimer’s Legion will have shut it all down. And Barry… I just can’t have that happen.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Barry promised. It was getting hard for him to breathe.

“Oh, Barry, if only that were true,” Aiden said. “But you’re a man of honor, Barry. And men of honor don’t just let scum like me escape into the night. Thus, the box.”

He pushed on the front of the box and the lid popped up. Carefully Aiden reached in; the contents seemed to be absolutely priceless.

“I know you were a criminal justice major at Canfield University,” Aiden said to Barry, “but how good’s your historical knowledge?”

Barry started squirming, sure that he could get free of the handcuffs holding him to the chair if he just worked at it.

“Because I’m a history buff, and I had never heard of this guy,” Aiden said, turning towards Barry. In his hands was a strange-looking clay pot. “Philo of Byzantium? Apparently he’s like the black sheep of the family, nobody ever talks about him. He was a scientist, an inventor – just an amazing guy. He was interested in mechanics, specifically air and water pressure. He made this thing – it’s called a _gimbal pot_. Eight sides on the ink pot and yet the ink never runs out the sides. Why? It’s _gyroscopic._ Love that word.”

The handcuffs were holding firm. Barry wished for his service revolver.

“But here’s the thing, Barry – Philo of Byzantium? Kind of a nutter. Pardon the generality. It’s been said that he was so interested in the relationships between blood and oxygen that he performed some of his pressure experiment on… shall we say… _living subjects._ All that crazy energy sent out into the world – it all ended up in this gimbal pot. Poor Philo – so long dead. I wonder if he would be pleased to know that his gimbal pot, used to prove so many early theories of mechanics, now is itself an instrument in the most precious mechanism there is.”

Aiden came closer to Barry, still holding the pot. “That mechanism, Barry?”

He leaned in, his breath minty and his sharp little teeth pointier than ever. “ _Death,_ Barry.”

Barry shoved his feet down against the tile floor, trying to throw himself forward to head butt Aiden. As though he was expecting such a move, Aiden nimbly sidestepped the attack, leaving Barry sprawled on his side on the cold tiles.

As Aiden raised the pot, Barry felt as though water was dripping down his arms, down his face, down the backs of his legs. He struggled to raise his head and saw, to his horror, a strange red miasma seeming to leave his body, traveling the distance to the pot in Aiden’s pale hands.

_“No,”_ Barry managed to say. Every breath felt like a punch in the gut.

“On behalf of my employer, I thank you for your assistance,” Aiden said, and he slowly lowered the pot to the floor.

Barry had only a few seconds more to watch the blood-red haze as it escaped from his body and poured towards the pot’s many openings.

And then it was all over.


	11. Suspicions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somebody's getting suspiciousss.

Claudia was vaguely aware of a buzzing sound nearby. She felt like she was being sucked down a giant drain, and her limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated. Her vision was foggy, and it seemed like she was in some sort of no place. The buzzing grew louder, and louder, until suddenly, it burst into her head, clear as day. She realized it wasn’t buzzing at all. It was music.

_...But you didn't have to cut me off, make it like it never happened and that we were nothing..._

Claudia sat bolt upright, staring around wildly, looking for the source of the sound.

_...I don’t even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger and it feels so rough..._

Suddenly, she realized what was happening. Pete had set her ringtone for her last Christmas, and since Claudia hardly ever called anyone on her phone, she hadn't bothered to change it. Rummaging around in her bag, she quickly dug it out, and answered.

“Hello?” she said groggily.

“Whoa, did I get the right number? You sound like you just came back from the dead.”

Claudia blinked, unable to speak for a moment. She cleared her throat, and then suddenly noticed the tiny little puddle of drool in front of the keyboard. The computer was off, and the clock read 9:35 A.M.

Oh.

“Sorry,” she said. “Hey, Pete.”

“Did you fix up the Warehouse security system?” he demanded.

“Yeah. Why do you think I’ve been lying here drooling all over my desk for the last two hours?”

“Good. Because I just got some bad news. One of my agents found Barry this morning in an abandoned gymnasium.”

Claudia held her breath.

“And?”

“He’s dead, Claudia. Exsanguinated, to be precise. With no sign of the murderer.”

Claudia swore angrily. This was not good.

“And that’s not all. Alex Turner didn’t show up this morning. He was supposed to report in at seven-thirty, but nobody has been able to contact the guy, and his family saw him leave for work, but he hasn’t shown up here yet.”

“Well that’s not entirely abnormal, is it? Maybe he... stopped for a doughnut. Or to entertain his mistress. Or maybe his car’s broken down in a place with no cell signal. People have lives.”

Pete sighed.

“That’s what I thought. Then I saw what had been painted on the back door. Can you guess?”

Claudia stiffened, her heart skipping a beat, hardly daring to breathe.

_“Knock knock.”_

“Ten points to the lucky lady,” Pete said, but he didn’t sound happy about it.

“Pete, who is it?” Claudia knew she sounded desperate, but she didn’t care. “Who wants to hurt us this badly?”

“There’s a guy I fired a couple years ago...”

“And he hates you enough to kill one of your agents, kidnap another, hack into the Warehouse,and generally ruin everyone’s lives?”

“No. No, he’s in prison now for the long haul. Turns out throwing a bomb at a school bus is a great way to get invited to all the swanky prison parties,” Pete said. “But he was my last enemy. Well, him, and Ralph Brunsky. But Ralph Brunsky’s married and he owns a used car dealership, so it’s probably not him.”

There was a long silence in which Claudia could feel herself falling back to sleep. Then Pete spoke again. “Claud... did you think it might be... you know?”

“No,” she said immediately, jerking upright in her seat as Pete’s words drove spears into her heart. “No way.”

“Just hear me out,” Pete said.

“No way,” she repeated. “It’s not Steve.”

“Claud, we don’t know where he went, or who he’s working for,” Pete said. “I know you don’t like to hear it, but it’s true.”

“I _know_ Steve,” Claudia said stubbornly. “It’s not him.”

Pete was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, he sounded sad. “Claud, you knew who he was four years ago. He could be anybody now.”

“But he’s _not._ He’s still Jinksy, wherever he is. And he would never give up the Warehouse so easily. He would never put us in jeopardy like that.”

“I hope you’re right,” Pete said. It was clear there was more on his mind, but he put his hand over the receiver and spoke to someone in the office. When he came back to the phone, he said, “I have to go. Squads are heading out to the big protest at the state capitol. But Claud, maybe you should look into Steve’s last mission. Maybe there’s something there we all missed... maybe it’ll tell you where he is. And maybe... maybe it’ll prove you’re right.

“But just think about this - if Steve’s still out there, kidnapped or whatever, how is it that in four years nobody’s been able to find him? There’s just nothing - no traces, absolutely nothing. Our Steve wouldn’t do that. Our Steve would figure out how to get a message to us. And I think you know that.”

Claudia did something she hadn’t done in quite a long time - she hung up on Pete. She slammed the phone down on the desk with such force it made the computer shudder. Staring down at her quivering hand, Claudia was no longer in danger of falling asleep.

 

Myka and HG took their tea out to the back porch, where they could talk in peace. Looking over the burned tree and the now-empty five-gallon buckets that had put out the blaze, the yard seemed even more desolate than usual.

“Someone’s trying to get into the Warehouse?” HG asked.

Myka nodded solemnly. “And into Pete’s company’s system, as well. Whoever’s doing this knows that Claudia did their security.”

“Who do you think it is?”

Myka took a long drink of tea and savored the sensation of the warm liquid sliding down her throat. At last she answered, “I think I have a theory… but I feel like I don’t even want to talk about it. You know, that if I say something about it, it’ll be true. Is that totally ridiculous?”

HG shook her head. “No, darling, it’s not ridiculous.”

The two women sat in silence, staring out at the yard for a long series of moments.

The calm was broken suddenly by Myka’s cell phone, blaring its tinny ringtone out across the backyard. She dug it out of her pocket. “It’s Pete,” she said to HG. “Hey, Pete, what’s up?”

“Mykes,” Pete said in his usually terse manner. “Is Claudia there?”

“No, I think she’s still at the Warehouse,” Myka said. “You could try calling there if you…”

“No,” Pete said, cutting her off. “I just talked to her, and I think she’s pretty angry at me.”

“What did you say?”

There was sheepish silence from the other end of the conversation.

“Pete, what did you say to her? You know she hasn’t slept in like two days, and there’s all this stuff going on with the security systems, and…”

“I said it might be Steve,” Pete interrupted.

“You said what might be Steve?” Myka demanded.

“The break-ins. Barry. And whatever’s going on with the Warehouse.”

“I’m so sorry about Barry,” Myka said. “He was a great guy.”

“Yeah, he was,” Pete said.

“Do you know what happened yet?” Myka asked.

“Coroner says he was exsanguinated,” Pete said, pronouncing the long word with uncharacteristic precision. “Except there are no puncture wounds on the guy. What’s that sound like to you, Mykes?”

“Artifact,” Myka said, her heart sinking.

“Yeah, I thought so too,” Pete said.

“Well, we’ll get on it,” Myka said. “Jenna and Erik are back from Minneapolis. We’ll send them out and see if we can find whatever caused Barry’s death.”

“You might just want to wait on that,” Pete said.

“What? Why?”

“Well, first of all, I’m pretty sure that whoever killed Barry brought along cleaning supplies, because the place is immaculate. Like nothing ever happened there. For all I know, Barry’s killer is in Aruba right now. And second, I have another guy missing.”

“So you want us to wait and see if he turns up dead?” Myka asked. “That seems a little extreme.”

“I’m just saying that there’s no point in chasing after a guy who’s long gone. I told Claudia exactly what you should be looking into,” Pete said. “And… then she hung up on me.”

“Oh, Pete,” Myka said. “What did you tell her to look into?”

“Steve’s last mission,” Pete said. “That artifact is still out there. Trace it, and I’m willing to bet you two packs of Twizzlers that you’ll find Steve. Or whoever he’s working for.”

“Pete, I just can’t…” Myka shook her head.

“I know it’s hard to believe, Mykes, but think about it.”

Myka clutched the phone and stared at the blackened spot on the ground that had once been full of life, supporting a growing, living thing until something terrible and unexpected had ripped it away.

Now it was nothing.

“Mykes?” Pete said into her ear.

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

“Listen, I’ve only got a few minutes before I have to go back out on crowd control,” Pete said. “But please, _please_ just look into Steve’s case. I know I don’t usually say this, but I’ve got…”

“A vibe,” Myka said. “I thought you gave those up when you stopped being a secret agent man.”

“They never totally go away,” Pete said. “And right now, I’ve got a vibe telling me this has something to do with Steve.”

“Okay, we’ll look into it,” Myka said.

From inside the house both women heard the door slam.

“Claudia’s home,” Myka said. “Talk to you later, Superman.”

“Give my love to the pint-size pyromaniac,” Pete said.

“I will,” Myka said. “Try not to punch out a teamster like you did last year.”

“I still maintain that guy was asking for it,” Pete said.

“Aren’t they always?” Myka smiled into the phone.

“And Mykes… call me if you need me.”

“Always,” Myka said, and she hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! If you are still following this I cannot express the depth of my gratitude to you. This story is completed, and it will be posted eventually. It is literally a matter of me getting off of my lazy ass and actually posting the chapters. Why is this so hard? I haven't the faintest idea. But anywhoo, with no further ado, here is chapter 11!


	12. Knock-Knock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who's there?

Claudia dumped her bag by the door and put her cell phone on the hall table. _No more phone calls. No more work. For once I’d just like something to be normal around here._

She peeled off her shoes and dumped them unceremoniously next to her bag. In her sock feet she crossed the hall and went into the living room.

River was asleep on the couch, curled up with her quilt wrapped snugly around her. In sleep River looked like the toddler she had once been, innocent and worry-free. She still held her blanket like she had as a child, her fingers twisted tightly in the corner of the quilt. It was the only blanket River ever wanted; made for her by Steve’s mother, it had been an absolute necessity for sleeping since River had first seen it. The background of the quilt was a soft blue color, the perfect shade to set off the multi-colored appliqued tree and birds stitched in the middle. Once upon a time it had been crisp and starchy, but years of dream-filled nights and afternoon naps had left it as soft and comfortable as a second skin.

Claudia sat down on the edge of the couch and stroked her daughter’s forehead. Sometimes it was difficult for Claudia to look at her daughter, because all she saw was Steve. River had Steve’s smile and his eyes, and sometimes Claudia saw him even in the tilt of River’s head or the quirky way she absentmindedly tugged at her earlobe when she was thinking really hard. When all of those things were combined, sometimes it was just more than Claudia could take.

River’s forehead was cool and she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, so Claudia gently kissed the girl on the top of her head, tugged one of the girl’s braids a little, and stood up.

She caught sight of Myka and HG on the back porch, and headed out to see them  
.  
“Hello, darling,” HG said as Claudia carefully shut the door behind her.

“Hi,” Claudia said. She stared out across the backyard, her eyes focused on the burned-down tree. “We have a problem.”

“Oh, Claudia, it’s not that bad,” Myka said.

“Yeah, I think it is,” Claudia said. “It’s just gotten out of control. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“We can fix it,” Myka said.

Claudia shook her head. “It’s bad. It’s really, really bad. I mean, we might even have to involve the Regents.”

“The Regents?” Myka was confused. “Do you really think they’d care about something like this?”

“Why wouldn’t they care? It’s their job to care.”

“They probably have bigger things to worry about, Claud,” Myka said.

Claudia turned to look at Myka, her brow furrowed. “What’s bigger than someone trying to get into the Warehouse’s computers?”

“Oh,” Myka said. “I thought we were talking about the tree.”

At that Claudia smiled. “Trees are replaceable. The Warehouse, no matter what it tries to tell us, is not.”

HG took a sip of her tea and looked over at Myka. Myka shook her head quickly, as though telling HG she wasn’t interested in whatever the Brit had on her mind.

“What’s going on?”

“Um, well, Claud, Pete called.”

“Not this,” Claudia said. “I don’t even want to hear it.”

“But I think he might have a point,” Myka said.

“No.”

“I know it’s difficult for you to hear, but…”

“You know what, Myka, it is difficult for me to hear that the people who are supposed to support me believe that Steve – of all people, Steve – is trying to bring down the Warehouse. You know what else is difficult for me?”

“Claud, I didn’t mean that Steve would…”

“Every single damn day is hard, Myka. He fell off the face of the earth and we haven’t been able to find him in four years. And yet I’m still expected to get up every morning and go to work protecting the world from things they’re not even allowed to know about. And every time I look in my daughter’s eyes, he’s all I see.”

“We all miss him, Claud,” Myka said. “But just because you don’t want him to be…”

_“It’s. Not. Steve.”_

“What could it hurt to look into Steve’s last mission?” HG asked. “At the very least, it will relieve our fears that Steve is the one responsible for the security breaches.”

“I’m not going to waste my time on that,” Claudia said. “It’s not Steve, and I know it.”

HG glanced at Myka.

“Don’t you think I would know if it was Steve?” Claudia asked.

“When it’s somebody in the computers, it’s all just ones and zeroes. It’s faceless,” Myka said. “It could be anyone.”

“That’s right. It could be anyone. But it’s _not Steve._ ” Claudia exhaled angrily.

“Claud, no matter what you say, we’re still going to look into it,” Myka said.

“I can’t stop you.”

“No, you can’t,” Myka said. “I’m going to go over the case file with Erik and Jenna, and then ask them to go in search of the artifact. And if they find it, awesome. If they can figure out that it’s not Steve, even better.”

The back door opened and all three women turned to look at it. River was standing there, blinking sleepily. “Mom, phone’s for you,” she said, and handed Claudia the cordless house phone, yawning. Claudia took it and walked a few steps away, the better to hear the conversation.

“How was your nap, sweetheart?” HG asked River.

“Fine,” River replied. “I had a dream that Erik and I went to the Three Broomsticks to have butterbeer with Ginny and Luna. It was weird.”

“That sounds like a nice dream.”

“Yeah, until Erik started flirting with Ginny,” River said. “He knows she’s supposed to end up with Harry.”

“In dreams we are often not ourselves,” HG said.

A look of something like worry flitted over River’s face, but it quickly disappeared. “Dreams are weird, huh?”

Claudia came back over to the group, her face ashen.

“What is it?” Myka asked.

Wordlessly Claudia held out the phone. Myka took it and held it up to her ear. A tinny computerized voice was on the other end, repeating the same two-word phrase over and over: _“Knock-knock. Knock-knock. Knock-knock.”_

Alarmed, Myka hit the power button on the phone and the eerie voice disappeared.

“Do whatever you have to do,” Claudia said emotionlessly. “This needs to end.”

She pushed past River and opened the back door.

“Claudia, are you all right?” Myka asked.

“No, I’m not,” Claudia said.

“Can we…?”

“I’m going to sleep,” Claudia said. “Please… just… no more phone calls. No more emergencies, okay?”

“Okay,” Myka said, knowing that her acquiescence was not a true guarantee.

The door closed behind Claudia and River looked at HG and Myka, her expression worried.

“She’ll be fine,” HG said. “What do you say we get dressed and head over to the Warehouse? I’m sure there’s inventory to do, huh?”

“Okay,” River said.

“I’ll pack up some cookies,” Myka said. “We’ll have a snack with our afternoon tea.”

 

The old man squinted out the window as the headlights pierced through pale beige shades. It was just getting light outside, and as he checked his watch, it blinked seven-thirty steadily. The lights turned off and he shrunk back slightly, unnerved by the sudden appearance of the car. As he cautiously peered into his living room, he heard footsteps on his porch. He had no idea who could possibly need to speak to him at this time of day, but whoever they were they obviously had some sense of manners, because they knocked softly.

He hesitated as he approached the door - what if this person had ill intentions?. Then, deciding he was old anyways and had nothing to lose, he opened it. His heart pounding, he cringed slightly as he did, but when he saw who it was, he relaxed almost immediately as he recognized the younger man. It had been a good ten years since he’d seen the fellow, and time hadn’t worn much on his face. He’d never known him all too well, having only seen him three times in his life. Well, four now.

He looked very much the same as he had, well-groomed and sporting a black leather jacket. The only difference the elderly man detected were a few grey hairs scattered in his short cropped hair; other than that, he was the same as in memory.

“Agent Jinks!” he cried in delight. “How good to see you!”

Jinks smiled at the old man, extending his hand in greeting.

“Hugo,” he said warmly. “It’s good to see you.”

As Hugo Miller shook the Warehouse agent’s hand, he noticed that he was wearing gloves, and realized just how cold it was outside.

“You look like you’re frozen, come on in,” he said, beckoning him into the house. The agent obliged, thanking him as he did, and the elderly Warehouse agent closed the door behind them with a resonating click. As the ninety year old man hobbled into his living room, he gestured for Agent Jinks to sit down in the chair, insisting on getting a pot of tea ready, and refusing any objections. After a brief, short argument, Miller was whistling smugly from the kitchen, while Agent Jinks sat uncomfortably in the living room.

“Really, Hugo, you don’t – ” he protested.

“No, no, no! I rarely get guests! This is my treat! Now, you have to tell me everything. How are things at the Warehouse? How’s Claudia settling into her new job? I heard it was a quite a dramatic event; poor Mrs. Frederic, such a terrible loss. Still though, the Warehouse must endure! How’s your little girl doing? What was her name again? Rachel?”

“River,” Jinks corrected him. Hugo nodded.

“I knew it was an ‘R,’” he said knowingly as he made his way back with a pot of tea. Jinks immediately got to his feet and took it from him, setting it down on the coffee table before the elderly man dropped it. Plunking himself down on the couch, he looked across the coffee table at the mildly uncomfortable young man in front of him.

“So,” he said. “What brings you to Connecticut? Are you on a case?”

“Yeah, actually I am, and I was wondering if you could help me,” Jinks replied. Hugo’s eyes lit up with excitement.

“Well, I’m honored!” he said. “How can I be of service?”

Agent Jinks paused for a moment, folding his hands up and leaning his chin against them. He frowned slightly.

“I need to pick your mind,” he said quietly.

For a second, Hugo Miller registered this as a compliment. Yet as his eyes met those of Agent Steven Jinks, he felt his heart skip a beat momentarily. Though his expression, his manners, his posture, even his voice all showed kindness, there was something in the man’s eyes that made his blood run cold. They were a dark, stormy blue color, like that of a raging sea, and they shone with malicious intent. The old man swallowed uncomfortably.

“Well, I’m happy to provide you with any information you need,” he said with slightly less   
enthusiasm. Jinks smiled.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it.”

No, the young agent was just as he always was; it had merely been an illusion. He smiled at Jinks.

“Now, what do you need?” he asked. Jinks shoved his gloved hand into his pocket, and pulled out   
a small golden object. Hugo’s eyes narrowed as his curiosity got the better of him.

“Here, have a look at this,” Jinks said, holding it out to the older man. Hugo allowed the golden coin to drop into his hand without question.

Almost immediately, he felt the sensation of having his brain expanded to twice it’s normal size, because all at once, every memory he possessed was swimming through his conscious mind. He was frozen, unable to move, staring intently at the coin.

“Hugo, listen to me carefully,” Jinks’ distant voice drifted into Hugo’s ears. “I need you look back through your life. Your most recent memories. Pull them up, let them come to mind. Tell them to me.”

Hugo was vaguely aware of speaking, but as he thought of his memories, of him and Claudia, Pete and Myka, Artie and Vanessa, they slipped away. He felt like he was being drawn into a vacuum cleaner. No, it was more like a black hole. Definitely a black hole. He couldn’t cry for help, he didn’t understand. Why was Steve doing this to him? Hadn’t they been friends?

As everything dissolved into blackness, all he could think about was what Claudia would say to this, and how dark Steve’s eyes looked to him as they stared across the coffee table at him.

 

Steven Jinks took the coin out of the confused old man’s hand, a slight smirk on his face. Miller was a genius, but he was also a fool. He always had let curiosity get the better of him, and as a ninety year old man, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that he had lost all of his memories. As the man’s eyes darted nervously around the room, Jinks jumped to his feet and left without a sound before the old man could register that he was even there. It was a flawless plan; the Janus coin was effective at stealing memories, which meant that he could get away without a murder case following him around, and now he had all the information he needed to get into the Warehouse.

He walked briskly out to his car, hopped in, and drove away as though nothing had happened. The little neighborhood was quiet; nobody saw him leave, and seeing as he hadn’t used the same car for more than six hours for the last month, he figured the security cameras he would be driving past wouldn’t pick up anything unusual. Somebody would find Hugo later in the day, cart him off to a nursing home, and that would be the end of it.

He quickly took out his phone and dialed Aiden. It only rang once before there was an answer.

“Mr. Crane.”

“Aiden, are you at the airport? Did you get what I needed?”

“Yes to both, Sir.”

“Good. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Smiling to himself, he slid his gloved hand into the pocket with the Janus coin. Soon he would have everything he needed to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, two chapters in a night! Again, this story wouldn't have been possible without my lovely fanfiction friend, memorysdaughter! Feel free to leave comments and criticisms so long as it is constructive. Enjoy!


End file.
